The phonology ofMāori is typical for aPolynesian language, with itsphonetic inventory being one of the smallest in the world with considerable variation in realisation.[1] TheMāori language retains theProto-Polynesian syllable structure: (C)V(V(V)), with no closedsyllables.[2][3][4] The stress pattern is unpredictable, unlike in many other Polynesian languages.[5]
The sound system of Māori is conservative; it is close to the system the Proto-Central Eastern Polynesian language had.[6] MostMāori dialects have ten consonant and five vowelphonemes.[6] The most unstable phonemes are/f/ and/ŋ/.[7]
Despite the widely held belief that the Māori phonetic system is simple and straightforward, in reality the realisation of Māori phonemes differs significantly; it depends on the speaker's age, the chosenregister and other factors.[8]
The most frequent Māori phonemes are/a/ (18%),/i/ (11.3%),/t/ (9.8%).[9] In an average text, vowels make up slightly more than 60% of all the phonemes.[9] Several combinations are extremely rare:/fo/,/fu/; also/wo/ and/wu/ can only be found inloanwords.[3] The first two combinations are rare because *f +rounded vowel became merged with *s >/h/; the second pair is not attested in any reconstructions of theProto-Polynesian language.[10]
| Labial | Coronal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |
| Stop | p | t | k | |
| Fricative | f [f,ɸ] | h | ||
| Approximant | w[a] | |||
| Liquid | ɾ |
An unusual feature of Māori is the lack ofsibilants, the most frequently encountered type offricative consonants, as well as the lack of/j/ which is the most widespreadsemivowel phoneme in world languages.[11]
Unvoiced phonemes,/h/, andfricativeallophones of/t/ and/k/ are sporadically voiced in fast speech. Devoicing of sonorants has also been attested in the same environment.[8]
In loanwords,/h/ affects surrounding vowels by making them moreclose.[12]
The realisation of/t/ and/k/ can bepalatalised orvelarised;/t/ before/i/ and/u/ may become anaffricate[t͡ʃ], especially if it occurs in the last syllable of the phrase.[8] Starting from the 19th century both/t/ and/k/ are increasingly aspirated, though still never as aspirated as the voiceless stops in English. The articlete 'the' can be pronounced as[ðə] in unstressed environments, sounding identical to its English translation.[8] Sometimes/k/ is voiced to[ɣ] in unstressed syllables.[8]
Theplace of articulation of/h/ is affected by the following front vowel:hī ('to fish') is pronounced as[çiː], with the palatal[ç].[13] Inhoa ('friend')/h/ becomeslabialised[hʷ].[8]
Most speakers pronounce/f/ as[f],[8] but historically[ɸ] dominated; the realisations[ʍ] and[h] also occurred (see§ Historical phonology).
The/ɾ/ phoneme is most frequently realised as atap,[ɾ]. Sometimes it is pronounced as anapproximant,[ɹ], when spoken fast or when there are multiple successive instances of/ɾ/ (such as inkōrero 'speech') and also as[l]; according to 19th-century data, the realisation of[l] was common for the dialects of theSouth Island, but occurs sporadically elsewhere.[14]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | /i,iː/ [i,iː] | /u,uː/[a] [ʉ,uː] | |
| Mid | /e,eː/ [ɛ,eː] | /o,oː/ [ɔ,oː] | |
| Open | /a,aː/ [ɐ,ɑː][b] | ||
The above table shows the five vowel phonemes and theallophones for some of them according toBauer 1993 andHarlow 2006.The number of phonemes is small, so their realisation varies considerably.[14]
Traditionally, the Māori phonemes/u/ and/uː/ were pronounced as back vowels. Partly due to the influence ofNew Zealand English, most younger speakers now realise them ascentral vowels, that is,[ʉ].[16][17]
Due to the influence of the New Zealand English realisation of/e/ as[e̝], the mid front/e/ as well as its long counterpart/eː/ are variably merged with the close front/i,iː/, so thatpī andkē as well aspiki andkete are pronounced similarly.[18]: 198–199
Phrase-final vowels can be reduced. This is especially true for short vowels, but it happens to long ones as well in fast speech.[8]
For Māori monophthongs there are minimal pairs differentiated byvowel length:[19]
Long vowels are pronounced for approximately twice as long as their short counterparts.[20]
Some linguists consider long vowels to be variants of the short ones, while others count them separately. The first approach is supported by the fact that long vowels prosodically behave in an identical way as vowel sequences. For example, the imperative marker/e/ has a zero variant before verbs with three or moremorae:e noho 'sit down!' ande tū 'stand up!', butpatua 'hit it!' andkīa 'say it!'.This is compatible with an analysis of long[iː] as/ii/, thuskīa/kiia/.[21]
The second approach is supported by the difference in quality between short vowels and the corresponding long vowels,[21] with long vowels having a more peripheral position.[20] This is most notably so in the pair/a/ ~/aː/:[22]/a/ is realised as[ɐ] while/aː/ is realised as[ɑː].
Besidemonophthongs Māori has manydiphthong vowel phonemes. Although any short vowel combinations are possible, researchers disagree on which combinations constitute diphthongs.[3]Formant frequency analysis distinguishes/ai̯/,/ae̯/,/ao̯/,/au̯/,/ou̯/ as diphthongs.[20]With younger speakers,/ai̯,au̯/ start with a higher vowel than the[a] of/ae̯,ao̯/.[citation needed]
Māoriphonotactics is often described using a term 'mora' which in this context is a combination of a short vowel and a preceding consonant (if present). Long vowels and diphthongs are counted as two moras. With these units it is easier to set up boundaries forreduplication, defineallomorphs for some particles, and it also might be important to define the poetic meter ofMāori poetry.[4]
For example, when the wordako ('to learn') isreduplicated, the resulted wordakoako ('give or take counsel') has the first syllable stressed, while the reduplication ofoho ('to wake up')—ohooho ('to be awake')—often has the second syllable stressed. The reason is that/oa/ in the first example is a sequence of short vowels while/oo/ forms a single syllable peak.[23]
Most Polynesian languagesstress the second to last mora of the word, but Māori stress follows many elaborate rules, which still remain not thoroughly understood.[5] One of the rules requires assigning hierarchy to syllables, and if more than one syllable receives the highest rank, the first one gets stressed:[5]
In addition to word stress, Māori has phrasal stress that falls on the second to last mora:[24]
This rule can also be applied to words that were formed by adding productivepassive andnominalisation suffixes:[24]
In reduplicated words, the first syllable of the repeated sequence has primary stress while the secondary stress falls on the first syllable of the second reduplication:[24]
The first syllable of the prefixwhaka- ('to cause something') is never stressed, but[clarification needed] if it is added to a word starting with a vowel and forms a diphthong or a long vowel, the resulting syllable moves higher in the syllable hierarchy and might get stressed:whakaputa ('to emerge; to publish'), butwhakaako ('to teach').[25]
Loanwords from English do not follow the rules at all.[25] Many researchers mention considerable variation in stress patterns.[26]
Reconstructions assume thatProto-Oceanic had 23 consonant phonemes,[27] and only 13 remained inProto-Polynesian:[28]unvoiced and voicedstop consonants that contrasted in Proto-Oceanic merged, only three out of fivenasal consonants remained, two more consonants disappeared completely, but at the same time Proto-Polynesian acquiredvowel length distinction.[29] Māori retains all five Proto-Oceanic vowels.[30] From aphonotactic standpoint, Proto-Polynesian lost consonant clusters and syllable-final consonants, although theirreflexes can still be found: thepassive form of the wordinu “to drink” isinumia, from *inum + ia.[30] Proto-Polynesian *ʔ and *h disappeared in Māori, while *l and *r became merged into/ɾ/ (the disappearance of/h/ and/l/-/t/ merger are typical innovations that can be found among theNuclear Polynesian languages, and the disappearance of/ʔ/ is typical for Proto-Central Eastern Polynesian languages.[2]
| Proto-Polynesian | *p | *t | *k | *m | *n | *ŋ | *w | *f | *l | *r | *s | *q | *h |
| Māori[30] | /p/ | /t/ | /k/ | /m/ | /n/ | /ŋ/ | /w/ | /f/,/h/,/w/ | /ɾ/ | /h/ | — | — | |
NB:/w/ is a very rare reflex of *f that is attested in five words as initial *faf- became/wah/, e.g. *fafine >wahine 'woman', *fafa >waha 'mouth'.[2] The same outcome of initial *faf- is also found in otherCentral Eastern Polynesian languages, e.g. Hawaiian (wahine 'woman',waha 'mouth').[31]
Generally speaking, the Proto-Polynesian *f >/h/ beforelabialised vowels, but is/f/ initially before non-labialised vowels.[32] Exceptions likely reflect that the merge of *f and *s took considerable time.[32] The/f/ ~/h/ variation is also seen in dialects: *fea >/fea/ in western dialects of theNorth Island, but/hea/ in eastern dialects.[33]
Manyhomophones were formed due to the phonetic inventory shrinking: for example, the wordtau ('suitable') and the wordtau ('season') go back to Proto-Polynesian *tau and *taqu, respectively. Another consequence of this change is the frequent occurrence of long vowels: Proto-Polynesian *kehe >kē.[2]
One of the many examples of irregular changes that happened in Māori is Proto-Polynesian *lima ('hand') > Māori/riŋa/, although a related word *lima ('five') turned into/rima/ in Māori; another one is a change from Proto-Eastern-Polynesian *aanuanua ('rainbow') >ānuanua inTahitian while becomingāniwaniwa in Māori.[33]
Māori has manydoublets like/raŋo/ =/ŋaro/ (from Proto-Polynesian *laŋo) and/pouaru/ (North Island) =/poueru/ (South Island).[33] Many of them occur due tometathesis, or the rearranging of sounds. In Māori's case metathesis switches adjacent vowels, consonants or syllables; in addition to that there exists a rare type of metathesis that involves sound features instead of segments: in tenga ~ kenakena ('Adam's apple') the consonants'place of articulation changes while retaining nasality; in inohi ~ unahi ('scales') the subject of metathesis is the vowel labialisation, but not thevowel height.[34] Somemorphemes haveallomorphs: for example, theprefix/ŋaːti/ changes to/ŋaːi/ if it is preceding a word that starts with/t/:/ŋaːtiporou/, but/ŋaːitahu/; the same can be observed for/motu/ ('island'):/moutohoraː/,Moutohora Island.[34]
Māori has undergone several notable sound changes during the last 200 years, most likely under the influence ofNew Zealand English phonetic system: the sound represented with⟨wh⟩ changed from[ɸ] to[f], stop consonants/p/,/t/,/k/ acquired aspiration, and/au/ and/ou/ have mostly merged.[35] Linguists studied several recordings of Māori and English speakers of different ages that had been made in the 1940s by theNew Zealand Broadcasting Service and concluded that the change indeed took place. As an example, the frequency of four realizations of the phoneme spelt⟨wh⟩ in an informant born in the 19th century can be found below (individual percentages rounded):[36][clarification needed]
The number ofaspirated/p/,/t/,/k/ gradually increased, this change is also evident in recordings of speakers of different age:[37]
| Consonants | Short vowels | Long vowels | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoneme | /p/ | /t/ | /k/ | /m/ | /n/ | /ŋ/ | /w/ | /f/ | /ɾ/ | /h/ | /a/ | /e/ | /i/ | /o/ | /u/ | /aː/ | /eː/ | /iː/ | /oː/ | /uː/ |
| Orthography | p | t | k | m | n | ng | w | wh | r | h | a | e | i | o | u | ā | ē | ī | ō | ū |
Although modern Māori has largely been standardised around the form which was primarily formerly found in the central North Island, historically regional variations did exist, one of which —Southern Māori — has been revived to a very limited extent. This dialect displays marked phonological variations, notably in the existence ofapocope. Several consonants are also changed in this dialect, with/k/ replacing/ŋ/,/w/ replacing/f/, and/l/ used in place of/ɾ/ in some areas.